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Trail of Cthulhu explicitly exists to combine the "greatest RPG of all time" (Call of Cthulhu) with Robin D. Laws's Gumshoe system, designed for investigate game. The solidly-bound 248pp hardback is presented with a consistent murky-green artwork by Jérôme Huguenin throughout the text, reminiscent of old, washed-out, photographs. My feelings on the artwork, both in terms of technique and creativity, is mixed; there is some excellent pieces which work particularly well in that style; the image of the Great Race of Yith on p136 is particularly tasty. Others - including the cover! - are barely passable. The layout, also by Huguenin, is three-column ragged-right with a serif font, and sans-serif headings, with deco-styled borders. It is extremely pleasing to the eye and shows some knowledge in these techniques, except in a couple of instances where the primary headings are less obvious than elements of the text (e.g., spell descriptions).
There is an very good table of contents, index and a fine collection of appendices. The main chapters are "The Investigator", "Clues, Tests and Contests", "The Cthulhu Mythos", "The Thirties" (the setting, contrast with Call of Cthulhu's 1920s default), "Putting It All Together", "Campaign Frames", and "The Kingsbury Horror". In actual play, I found moments where the organisation of the text could have been improved, especially with some jumping between descriptions of investigator abilities and their actual use in play. The game is designed to be run as purist or pulp modes, noting that H.P. Lovecraft wrote with both orientations. The rules have specially marked sections depending on which method the Keeper wishes to use (the game uses the old Call of Cthulhu terms 'Keeper' and 'Investigator' to describe the GM and PCs). Finally, the text includes a lot of appropriate quotes from the famous author in an illustrative manner.
Investigators and System
The first two chapters provide the core of the game system. Descriptions of some eighteen setting and genre-appropriate occupations are provided, along with occupational abilities, credit rating band and any special abilities. Occupational abilities are those that the Investigator can purchase at half-cost in this point-build system. A default of 65 points is provided to purchase from the 65 abilities, with characters start with Sanity of 4, Stability and Health at 1 and the lower end of their Credit Rating bad. Note there is no generic 'statistics' as such which add to 'skills'; the two components are collapsed into one broad category - abilities - which is also broad enough to include fairly particular values such as Sanity and Stability. All occupations have a special ability which often are framed in a narrative orientation (e.g., an Antiquitarian "once per adventure" may have a suitable or informative item "back at the shop". Finally, Investigators also come with Drives, "a core desire that impels him to seek strange, far truths at the cost of everything that he once held dear". Some fourteen are described, such as Antiquitarianism, Curiosity, Revenge Scholarship etc. As a direct influence on play, refusing a Drive costs Stability.
Investigator abilities are described in roughly a quarter of a page each with a brief definition and some examples. More detail is entered for some of the core abilities of the game, such as Credit Rating (which comes with a annual income and lifestyle signifiers chart), Cthulhu Mythos, Sanity and Stability. The Cthulhu Mythos ability allows Investigators to "piece together the secret rules of the real world", costing Sanity and Stability in the process. Sanity is the ability to sustain fundamental human concerns; for every three full points of Sanity a character also associates a Pillar of Sanity, one human concern (ideology, religion, social institution) that gives the character meaning. Likewise for Stability, the resistance to mental trauma, a character must choose a Source of Stability for every three points, being a person who they emotionally rely upon. An Investigator can have a low Sanity, but high Stability (inwardly mad but apparently unfazable) or vice-versa (highly dedicated and connected, but of nervous disposition).
The core, investigative, system rule is that if Investigators turn up to a scene they will discover the core clues. The emphasis of the story is not so much finding the clues (although finding additional clues can be an issue, if you don't have the right ability), but rather interpretation the clues that they find. This is to ensure that storylines are not wrecked by (say) a failed "Library Use" roll or equivalent. For tests, simply roll a d6, add a number of points from the Investigator's pool in their ability (the rating) and try to defeat the target number. Whilst this adds another element of resource management in the game, and the tension that arises from that, I am not sure it added much in a genre-specific sense. The pools can be occasionally refreshed, although at different rates; investigative ability pools are refreshed only at the end of each case, whereas three general ability pools (except Health, Sanity and Stability) can be refreshed when the Investigators are independent of a danger area. Health can be refreshed at 2 points per day of 'restful activity', whereas Sanity and Stability may be refreshed between adventures.
Contests are defined as competitive tests. This can be used for chases, combat etc. In turn, each character involved attempts a test, and continues to do if they succeed; those that fail have lost the contest. In combat contests, the test is based on a 'hit threshold' (3 or 4 if Athletics 8+, other conditional modifiers) and damage is based on a single die, modified by weapon type, and is subtracted from the Health pool (amour, although rare, is possible). Physical injury is marked as either hurt (Health 0 to -5, Seriously Wounded -6 to -11, or Dead -12 or more), with graduated effects and healing difficulty. This chart is somewhat replicated when psychic damage is described, and the appropriate tests are called for, again with variable thresholds and damage values (e.g., fresh corpse is 1 stability point loss, killing one's spouse is 8). It is possible, under desperate circumstances, for the character to spend themselves negative e.g., they just have to cast that Stability-blasting spell. Negative stability is rated from 0 to -5 (shaken), -6 to -11 (blasted) and -12 (incurably insane). Unlike Stability, when Sanity reaches 0, the character is permanently insane. Sanity is lost through Mythos shocks which drop the character's Stability below 0, or using the Mythos ability. If somehow an investigation comes to a conclusion and there is absolutely no proof of any Mythos activity Sanity can be recovered by 1 point. Short descriptions of several common insanities are provided.
Mythos, Setting and Story
The chapter on the Cthulhu Mythos begins with "Gods and Titans", the big entities, such as Azathoth, Cthulhu, Hastur, Yog-Sothoth and so forth. Each of these entities comes with extra damage values for Stability and Sanity pool losses. Each being is introduced with a description from Lovecraft then several dot point paragraphs describing the entity and their core interests. No ability ratings are provided for these beings, which I must confess I missed somewhat, but rather more effort is placed into giving tantalising indirect suggestions on how they could be included into an investigation. This contrasts somewhat with the Alien Races described later, where each species is given a thorough physical and sometimes psychic description, along with a range of appropriate (i.e., usually combat-based) core abilities are provided, along with hit threshold, armor, weapons, and stability loss. An interesting component is Investigator ability-derived descriptions of clues that are linked with the aliens. Finally, Beasts and Monsters are also described with statistical components but far less adventure-driven aspects.
Quite confusingly, the section on 'Tomes and Magic' is thrown in-between the 'Gods and Titans' and 'Alien Races' sections. Tomes are defined as either clues or resources. Clue tomes can skim0read, whereas a resource tome must be pored over in an indeterminate period of time. Tomes can, of course, be both and provide various benefits and problems. The Eltdown Shards, for example, provide 1 dedicated Occult pool point by skimming, but +1 Cthulhu Mythos by poring over it, or +2 if the Investigator has already encountered the Great Race of Yith or Elder Things. Tomes can also include Spells which can take but a few days to learn with training and appropriate abilities. Spells come with a description of casting, effects and components, along with Stability Test difficulty values, Stability costs, and casting time, which can vary from several seconds to multiple hours for summoning rituals. Around twenty-four spells and twelve rituals are described.
Several sample cults are described with distribution, plot hooks and responses provided, along with notes for Keeper's creating their own cult, preceding the chapter on the 1930s which is accurately defined as 'a desperate decade', where poverty, racism and war were the norm. Headline news items are provided, along with a significant section on the rise of totalitarianism. 'Nightmare countries' (Abyssinia, Belgian Congo, Egypt, Germany, Soviet Union, Thibit) are provided some mundane and Cthulhu related information, although I must protest the exclusion of the Australian continent, New Guinea and the Malay archipelago from discussion! The chapter concludes with an obligatory equipment list which includes a page and a half (although with larger font and spacing) of vehicle stats, a page for weapons, and two pages of sundries.
Storytelling and Scenario
Two chapters ("Putting It All Together", "Campaign Frames") are Investigator and Keeper advice pages. They are quite good for the model of "storylike" tempo which the author, and game-system designer, both aspire towards. Keeping the story moving, keeping the responses interesting, providing hooks, breadcrumbs, revealing the awful truth, taking historical sources and adding a Cthulhu flavour, engaging in cliffhanger scenes, and keeping the sense of menace is all described in the first chapter. The second is more orientated towards dealing with the larger campaign story and enframing those in consistent manner, especially with regards to setting, style, appropriate investigators and variant rules. Three example campaigns are provided in some detail with these campaign frames.
The sample scenario, the Kingsbury Horror, is derived from a real-world, unsolved, serial killer events on Cleveland in the 1930s. Actual play found that the tempo could be maintained quite well, and the issue of resource management did add tension to the story development. But in order to do so the Keeper must be constantly aware of the plot speed, and introduce the numerous floating clues to ensure the narrative moves forward scene-by-scene and keeps the players on their toes. There are a couple of red herrings in the storyline which I would prefer were integrated, albeit in an unexpected way, given that the scenes otherwise hang a little oddly to the tale. Nevertheless, it did provide and interesting and challenging scenario spread over several sessions with some great roleplaying encounters, plenty of opportunities for investigation and a challenging climax.
Overall
Trail of Cthulhu is a solid product which achieves its stated aims. In terms of style, the layout was very good, the artwork fair-good, it is fairly well written, solidly produced, and yes, it's Cthulhu and therefore it does pretty well on the 'cool' stakes. In terms of substance, this book provides pretty much what is needed for a good game - investigators, entities, . The efficiency of this writing is only fair as well. The game system largely comes together quite nicely, even if the 1d6 core mechanic for tests does seem a little invariable and even more so when dealing with particularly large and powerful entities - it doesn't scale very well. The tension over resource management can work, along with the sources of stability and pillars of sanity, as long as the Keeper pays attention to it and integrates it with the general plot.
Trail of Cthulhu is a good game and part of the run of licenses on Cthulhu, including Shadows of Cthulhy (True20), Realms of Cthulhu (Savage Worlds), D20 Call of Cthulhu. As a game series however, its biggest challenge will be the development of epic storylines that are similar quality as Masks of Nyarlathotep, Horror on the Orient Express, Shadows of Yog-Sothoth etc.
Style: 1 + .8 (layout) + .6 (art) + .8 (coolness) + .7 (readability) + .9 (product) = 4.6 Substance: 1 + .6 (content) + .6 (text) + .7 (fun) + .7 (workmanship) + .7 (system) = 4.3
